Strikes over pension reform in France could slow grain exports from this month by preventing enough supplies from reaching ports and by making the French crop too expensive to compete overseas
Coldiretti reports. The benefit from the situation is for the lobby linked to the US dairy industry (CCFN) which has explicitly asked with a letter to impose taxes on imports of European cheeses to favor the fake Made in Italy industry and force the Union European to open the borders to the fake Italian food made in US
Genoa - From wholesale food market to a centre for advanced logistics services: 10 years after its move from the city centre to the area of Bolzaneto, the fruit and vegetable market of Genoa, managed by SGM (Società Gestione Mercato), opens its doors to the public. The opening will be on Saturday, 14 September Genoa
Bristol - Foreign governments subject to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs have targeted American distilleries and their bourbon and rye whiskeys for retaliation.
Berlin - Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies have called for Germany to phase out coal by 2030 but the government has insisted on keeping its 2038 target, in the latest sign of strain within her coalition.
Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported steel brought by an industry group that argued that a key part of the law under which he imposed the duties violates the U.S. Constitution.
Washington - A cousin of cannabis plants that produce marijuana, hemp is used in products ranging from food to building materials and cannabidiol, or CBD oil, which is being touted as a treatment for everything from sleeplessness to acne to heart disease.
Beijing - China’s May coal imports rose 8.6% from the month before to 27.47 million tonnes, customs data showed on Monday, the highest level since January as power utilities boosted purchases ahead of summer.
Port Klang - Malaysia will send back some 3,300 tons of non-recyclable plastic waste to countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia in a move to avoid becoming a dumping ground for rich nations, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Tuesday
Washington - The U.S. Commerce Department told Reuters Monday it has submitted the results of a national security investigation into uranium imports to the White House.
Washington - The United States is working on a plan to lift tariffs from Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminum but preserve the gains that domestic producers have received from the duties so far.
Genoa - In the first 11 months of 2018, in China total coal and lignite imports increased a strong 8.9 percent to 270.5 mln tonnes. Of this, imports of steam coal and lignite increased by 13.5 percent year-on-year to 209.4 mln tonnes.
Berlin - From Genoa to Trieste, the main ports are equipped to easily handle traffic.
Berlin - German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said ending the use of coal as an energy source would send a positive signal internationally and need not drive the country’s energy prices higher.
Winnipeg - The delays caused some containers to miss their vessels, triggering contract breach penalties, Northey said.
Kiev - The imposition of martial law is not affecting Ukrainian grain shipments from ports on the Azov Sea so far and if necessary they can be diverted to the Black Sea, Ukraine’s acting agriculture minister says. More broadly, the prospects for grain exports from the Azov Sea are unclear at this point
Geneva - The U.S. assessment of India’s market price support (MPS) for cotton said New Delhi was allowed to pay out up to 10 percent of the value of production, but the actual figure had ranged from 53 percent to 81 percent since 2010.
Beijing - According to the company website, the “Mining and Smelting Combine Bor” includes Bor Copper Mines that employ 2,239 people as well as Bor Copper Smelter Refinery and the Majdanpek Copper Mine.
Sarajevo - Bosnia’s regional police on Friday detained the general manager of the Balkans’ leading metallurgical coke producer Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL) which was ordered to halt operations the previous day accused of environmental negligence.
Hong Kong - Larry Sloven arrived in southern China three decades ago, just as the region was taking off as the low-cost manufacturing centre of the world.
Ein Bokek - The Dead Sea is shrinking at the rate of about a meter a year, leaving behind deserted beaches and sinkholes in a slow-motion environmental disaster. The main culprit is the drying up of the Jordan river, its main tributary, as communities upstream draw on it for farming and drinking
Doha - Qatar’s Hassad Food has announced its plan to invest 500 million U.S. dollarsin the agricultural and food sector in Sudan over the next three years. The announcement came after Hassad, the wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, signed a mutual agreement with a Sudanese company
Rome - Meetings continue to be positive, the minister is listening to everyone, but there is still no solution for the future of ILVA and one will not come soon. The Deputy Prime Minister himself, Luigi Di Maio, made this clear when he announced further work is needed
Paris - French farmers will start a blockade of oil refineries and fuel depots on Sunday evening in protest at plans by Total to use imported palm oil at a biofuel facility, a move that has fanned farmer discontent over unfair competition
Chicago - Global grain marketers have seized upon trade tensions between the United States and several of its top export markets, including China, to turn around struggling trading units following one of the toughest years ever for the industry.
Paris - Dry bulk freight rates for the smaller sizes of ship are likely to rise significantly over the next three years as demand is expected to outstrip supply, a shipping analyst said Thursday. New orders for Handysize, Handymax and Supramax vessels were at extremely low levels
London - Gold and oil will extend their gains on Monday, albeit modestly, when the markets open for the first time since Western powers launched a missile attack on Syria but equities and bonds are unlikely to suffer big losses unless the West strikes again or Russia retaliates
Beijing - Chinese exports of steel products may continue to fall this year due to strong domestic demand and reductions in capacity due to environmental commitments, the chairman of state-owned mill Fujian Sangang Group said.
Genova - Italmatch Chemicals(€400 million in revenue and six production plants in Europe) acquired the Jiayou Chemical Company, which is active in the production and sale of phosphonate additives, from the Ecolab Group, a world leader in technologies and services for water, hygiene and energy
Savona - The Board of Directors of the Orsero Group has conducted a reviewof its consolidated financial data at 31 December 2017, with the aim of presenting a financial picture following the acquisition of all the remaining subscribed capital from firms Hermanos Fernández López, Fruttital Firenze and Galandi
Piombino - Jindal drags its feet, and the sale of Algerian owned Inferpi steel, based in Piombino, remains on hold. Following the announcement of what seemed like a done deal for the sale of the steel mill on part of Algeria-based Cevital to India’s Jindal
Washington - Coal producers filed two recent lawsuits against governments in Washington state and California challenging local decisions to block port projects on environmental grounds.
Genoa - ILVA’s Genoa workers have been recognised by the company’s Programme Agreement, in which one of the binding points is a guarantee of upholding employment levels in exchange for the concession of 1.2 million sqm of land to ILVA’s holding company.
London - In March 2017, India’s beleaguered steel industry achieved what had been unthinkable even a few months ago. The country’s iron and steel exports during the month were more than double their imports.
London - Glencore has increased production of the metals used to make electric car batteries faster than its major mining rivals, according to an industry-wide analysis that shows the scale of a strategy that has big prospective risks and rewards
Genoa - The Genoese contingent of FIOM has decided to break ranks from the union position of abiding by the agreement signed in 2005, and has occupied the Cornigliano facility in Genoa.
Predosa - Production will not stop on 30 November. That date has been put back to 15 December; however, a buyer has yet to be found. The fate of the 42 workers at 3M, formerly Grafoplast in Predosa, the leading company in the production of electric wire markers, is still hanging by a thread
Genova - The business plan will be unveiled -and discussed - next Thursday, but AM Investco Italy’s (Arcelor Mittal and Marcegaglia’s) plan to set up a research centre in Taranto is well known. Even to the unions. So the Genoese secretaries of UILM and FIM CISL are now asking for the centre to be built in Genoa
Genova - The ship’s course, as recorded in the logbook aboard the container vessel seized by Italy’s Finance Police in the port of Gioia Tauro, was pretty accurate. From Calabria, in a matter of a few hours, the ship carrying the Tramadol cargo, known also as “the fighter drug”, would have sailed straight to Genoa
Genoa - Tense times for ‘Made in Italy’ steel. There is no shortage of complications from Taranto to Piombino.
Genova - The dispute over Ilva has been burning hotter since the controlled bankruptcyat the Italian steel group which was once owned by the Riva family. Nowadays the facility belongs to the chain Am InvestCo, controlled by the Franco-Indian ArcelorMittal Group
Genova - As negotiations on the layoffs announced by Am Investco in connection with the acquisition of Ilva S.p.A. are likely to start on October 9, tensions are rising at the union. Fiom Cgil union expressed its concern for “the picture that emerged at a Paris meeting of the Governing Board of the Industries
Alba - New York will soon get another jewel of Italian excellence.In September Ferrero plans to bring its open innovation science division to Cornell University’s Roosevelt Island campus, nestled in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens
Washington - “We need to ensure that the huge trade deficits do not continue and we have balance and reciprocity. This should be periodically reviewed,” Lighthizer said in opening remarks at NAFTA negotiations in Washington.
London - Trump official says “232” probe still in final review.
Rome - When you speak with those who carry out the food inspections,the answer is always the same: if the product is Italian you can be sure. Of course, there is always an exception, one finds producers who do things that are wrong, but it is precisely that, an exception to the rule
Bologna - The omelettes were made in the Netherlands and Belgium. But the contaminated dishes may have ended up on tables in 15 countries, including Italy. The danger goes by a name that is difficult to pronounce: it is called “Fluocyanobenpyrazole”, and it is the most important ingredient in a deadly insecticide
Bogota - One person was rescued after the blast. The cause of the explosion is not yet clear and two bodies are still in the mine, the regional disaster authority Dapard said.
London - . The increased shipments came as the European Union and other U.S. allies heaped criticism on the Trump administration for its rejection of the Paris Climate Accord, a deal agreed by nearly 200 countries to cut carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal.
Rome - Ilva, strike in Taranto and concern among ArcelorMittal workers. The strike at the Ilva plant in Taranto, launched by the UBS, begins tonight at 23:00 and will run until 7:00 on Friday, 21.
Bogota - At least eight miners at an underground coal mine in Colombia have died and five more are missing after an explosion caused by methane gas, the national mining agency said on Saturday.
Ryadh - Saudi Arabia is banning imports of Egyptian strawberries due to pesticide residues, said Abdel Hamid al-Demerdash, the head of Egypt’s Agriculture Export Council, the latest such ban to hit Egypt as it struggles to revive its economy
Yaounde - Exports of cocoa and coffee resumed from Cameroon’s main port of Douala on Monday following the end to a dock workers’ strike that had blocked shipments since Friday, officials said.
Beijing - Producer price inflation +6.4 pct y/y.PPI negative m/m for first time since June.
Lecco - British Steel is expanding its activities in the European railway sector by openinga new logistics centre in Italy for the production of long length rails. The company - a key supplier of Italy’s state rail operator Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) - has just inaugurated a plant in Lecco
Washington - Rising coal prices and a more favorable outlook for the industry under President Donald Trump’s administration are allowing U.S. coal companies to sign new leveraged loans after being shut out of the market since mid-2015, despite a declining long-term outlook for the industry.
Andria - On 13 July 2015 Paola Clemente,49, died from overwork in the fields around Andria (Puglia). She died from exhaustion: putting in twelve-hour days for a wage of less than thirty euro. Her death prompted Trani’s prosecutor to open an investigation that yesterday led to the arrest of six individuals
Nuova Delhi - Coal imports declined by 21.7 per cent to 14.31 million tonnes in January as the power utilities did not lift much fuel due to abundant stock available with them.
Shanghai - China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea starting Feb. 19, the country’s commerce ministry said in a notice posted on its website on Saturday, as part of its efforts to implement United Nations sanctions against the country.
Genoa - The ILVA group will lay off 5,000 workers in Italy: 4,984 from the Taranto plant, where 10,974 are employed in the integrated steelworks, and 80 (in other words everyone) at the logistical centre in Marghera, where the product from Taranto is unloaded and loaded onto ships.
Beijing - China imported 26.97 million mt of coal in November this year. In December 2015, the country imported 17.64 million mt of coal. For the whole year 2016, total coal imports rose 25.2% year on year to 255.51 million mt.
Milan - Parmalat is prepared to definitively leave the Milan Stock Exchange, after five years of minimal presence, with exchanges reduced because the shares available for trading were limited to 12.26% of the capital after Lactalis’s 2011 takeover bid
Gwadar - “Pakistan is located at the intersection of three engines of growth in Asia - South Asia, China and Central Asia,” Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.
Milan - “Investments in ILVA’s vertical products are an essential element of the industrial plan. We must push for verticalization. In Genoa, the future manager will find the new galvanisation line 5, in which we have invested over €8 million, and tin-plate line 4 revamped for €400,000
Brussels - The European Commission proposed on Wednesday a new way to assess whether Chinese manufacturers are exporting products such as steel at unfairly low prices in response to Beijing’s demand for change by the end of the year
New Delhi - Coal imports during July declined by 11.1 per cent to 18.03 million tonnes (MT) on the back of higher domestic availability of the fossil fuel.
Rome - The sale of ILVA to private investors is being delayed until 2017. Special Commissioner Piero Gnudi is ruling out the possibility of selling the group in October and is extending the time frame until the first months of the new year
Genoa - The Board of Directors of publicly controlled joint-stock companyCassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) has scheduled a meeting for this morning. On the table is plan B of the consortium led by Giovanni Arvedi for the lease/purchase of the Ilva steel plants in Taranto, Genoa and Novi Ligure
Genoa - The sale of troubled Italian Ilva steel plant to private interests will not contain any employment clauses.
Tokyo - Steel prices are heading in opposite directions, depending on what part of the globe you are on.
Genoa - The comments came yesterday from the Franco-Indian giant ArcelorMittal, and on Wednesday, 22 June, it will be the turn of Turkey’s Erdemir Group.
London - Commodities stocks were in demand, with the European basic resources index rising 1.6 percent.
Rome - The updated figures disclosed by ILVA’s receivership commissioners – Piero Gnudi, Corrado Carrubba and Enrico Laghi - in their report of 24 March, go as far as 30 November 2015.
Genoa - The bridging loan worth €300 million that was granted to ILVA by the Italian Government last December is now also in the sights of the European Commission because it is suspected to be State Aid provided in violation of E.U. regulations and therefore distorting competition
Tripoli - Loading of the Indian-flagged Distya Ameya had started on Monday morning and would be finished later in the day.
Johannesburg - Falling commodity prices have pushed several African countries back into the embrace of the International Monetary Fund, which has an opportunity to push for reforms and inject transparency into opaque economies.
London - John Kemp : “The consumption figures are so high that some analysts question whether the gasoline is actually being exported rather than consumed domestically”.
Mumbai - Greybull deal saves more than 4,000 jobs, Sanjeev Gupta says he has the money to buy Port Talbot
Mogadishu - Somalia’s bread basket has become a dust bowl as the life-giving watersof the mighty Shabelle river run dry amid intense drought in the war-torn country. River-fed farmlands have become parched playgrounds for children who kick footballs beneath a cloudless sky
London - Prime Minister David Cameron said there were no guarantees that Tata Steel’s business in Britain would be saved after the Indian company put it up for sale and that he did not believe nationalisation was the right answer for the industry.
London - Noble Energy warns of risk of delay to Leviathan development, Netanyahu hopes to use gas exports to improve regional ties.
London - Brazilian miner Vale SA said it could lose as much as 100 million tonnes of annual iron ore output in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais over the next three years due to pending environmental licenses.
Moscow - Budget shortfall up to $30 bln if oil prices stay at $30, with easy options gone, officials considering risky measures.
Rome - News of the investigation comes on the day a controversy over the new General Manager of ILVA, Marco Pucci, broke out in Italy.
Baku - Fire burns, bodies not found from worst Azeri oil accident * Dec.4 storm on Caspian caused platform fires.
Genoa - Which Italian company, even a large one, has the necessary and sufficient funds? Marceglia and Arvedi believe they can do it, but most union sources think that the weight of the operation cannot be supported by either of these two groups alone.
London - European equities bounced back on Tuesday from sharp declines in the previous two sessions as energy stocks tracked higher crude oil prices and steel makers gained following a European Commission move on Chinese and Russian steel imports.
Ankara - The G20 countries spend almost four times as much to prop up fossil fuel production as they do to subsidise renewable energy, calling into question their commitment to halting climate change, a think tank said on Thursday The G20 spent an average $78 billion on national subsidies
China lost an appeal ruling on Wednesday in a World Trade Organization dispute in which Japan and the European Union had complained about Chinese use of anti-dumping duties on high performance
London - Concerns about the climate change impact of burning the world’s remaining oil resources mean the reserves will never be fully exploited, BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale said on Tuesday.
London - Unless you were hiding out in rough rice or lean hogs, commodities were not your friend in the third quarter of 2015.
London - Slumping commodity prices pose a serious challenge to economic and political stability in developing economies across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
London - The turmoil on Chinese share and currency markets, and worries about the true extent of the country’s economic slowdown continue to rattle investors.
Islamabad - Pakistan’s trade with Iran, worth $1.3 billion in the financial year 2008-9, plummeted to $217 million dollars in the 2013-4 financial year.
Isparta - Many of the workers in the bright-pink fields in this southwest Turkish province have an unexpected connection with the flowers they are tending. They are Syrian refugees working as itinerant labourers during Turkey’s harvest of its prized Damascus rose
Beijing - Australian thermal coal shippers such as BHP Billiton, Glencore, Peabody Energy and Rio Tinto may potentially have to wait until June 2017 for China to eliminate its 6% tariff on imports of Australian thermal coal.
New York - While the official US payroll numbers released on Friday showing an increase of 280,000 jobs in May were welcomed across the board by economists, the natural resources and mining industry suffered its worst month since the global financial crisis
A spokesperson for Arcelor confirmed nearly 20 people lost their jobs in April due to the ending of a joint venture project.
Canberra - The billionaire philanthropist said that because of the reckless actions of the big iron miners he was now “being forced” to lay off more than 100 workers a day in his own company.
Tripoli - Central bank forex reserves were $76.6 billion at the end of 2014 compared with $105.9 billion a year earlier.
